Shinboku
by Seress
Summary: While wandering around the Kohaku Apartment Complex, Chihiro accidentally finds a portal to the spirit world. She decides to use it and tell Kohaku exactly what she thinks about ex-river spirits who don't keep their promises.


Disclaimer: Spirited Away a.k.a. Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (c) Hayao Miyazaki & Studio Ghibli

* * *

The dull grey concrete of the buildings gave the area a decidedly gloomy appearance. The grass never looked truly green, but wavered between a sickly olive and yellow-brown. Nothing ever showed in the windows of the apartments except blinds closed tightly against the world. There was not a single child's tricycle to be seen. The apartment complex was like a ghost town.

The brunette girl smiled at the old saying. She was one of the few humans to have actually ever seen a real ghost town, and she knew that it didn't fit the expression. From what she had seen, the town lit up at night, filled with the activity of ghosts and spirits grabbing a bite to eat and visiting the bathhouse that had been nearby.

Here, however, was a ghost town with no ghosts in it. The Kohaku Apartment Complex was simply empty, or as close to empty as you could get. In the eight or so years since it was established it had gone through cycles of prosperity and poverty, and now it seemed to have truly run out of luck once and for all.

Chihiro pulled her school cardigan more closely around her against the wind. She should have gone home to change instead of coming straight from school, but she hadn't really been thinking about clothing at the time. She was thinking about universities, and her last days of high school, and what she was going to do with her life. She had been thinking about how Haku -No, his name was Kohaku now, she reminded herself- had promised that they would meet again, but it had been seven years already and now she would be going off to a university, and if he tried to look for her he'd never find her, and then they'd never see each other again, and she still had so much to tell him-

"Stop!" She said out loud to herself. "I shouldn't jump to conclusions. I should just... wait. Wait." She wrinkled her delicate nose. "I hate waiting..." She hopped over the low wall that separated the street 

from the apartment complex, then took a moment to tug her short skirt down a little before she continued walking.

She wound around the apartment buildings aimlessly until she reached the back of the complex, where there was a tiny backyard shared between the inhabitants of the apartment complex. All-but-naked tree boughs peeked over the chain-link fence that separated the woods from the yard, shedding their last leaves onto the dying grass. She walked toward the fence and gazed at the wood, although the trees were too thick to see any farther than a few yards. She grabbed a stick and ran it across the fence, the metallic clacking cutting through the silence.

When she had reached the end of the longest side of the fence, tossed the stick away and peered curiously at a large hole in the fence.

"Never seen that before." She wasn't that surprised, really. She hadn't been here in about a year, and some idiot boys had probably cut a section out of the fence for kicks.

Thinking she could take a short-cut out of the apartment complex, she crawled through the gap, catching her hair tie on a section of wire. She got through, stood, reached around, and grabbed her hair tie. Her hair now reached down to her waist, and was a real problem when it wasn't tied back. Not to mention that was her favorite hair tie.

As she turned back, she was faced by the wood that loomed before her. She wavered a bit, then stuck out her chin defiantly and marched forward.

Twenty minutes later, she had begun to question her common sense at choosing to go into this wood. She had no idea where she was or what direction she was going in, because it seemed like every single time she tried to go straight, a tree would block her path, and she'd have to choose left or right, and then another tree would come right after that, and for some reason it was even windier in the wood than it had been in the apartment complex. The wind teased at her hair and ran along the pleats of her skirt, trying to flip it up. Weren't the trees supposed to block the wind? she thought furiously as she fought to hold her skirt down.

It was then that she thought she heard something. She shook her head and continued walking, sure she'd reach the road soon, but as she walked farther, the more distinct the sound became.

"Am I hearing /farm animals/?" Chihiro was flabbergasted. There weren't any farms anywhere near the apartment complex. There weren't any farms within ten miles! And yet she swore that she just heard pigs squealing. As she strained to hear more, she noticed that the trees were thinning. She grinned happily and picked up the pace, running until she cleared the wood.

What she saw next made her heart stop.

It was a sight she occasionally had nightmares about, in which she hadn't been able to get her parents back after all, and they had been stuck as pigs, to live and die in this very barn. She stepped tentatively forward. Yes, it was the exact same, which meant...

She broke into a run, her backpack thumping against her shoulder blades. She reached the cliff that overlooked the huge body of water she had once likened to the sea. And there, just to her right, was the enormous bathhouse straight out of her childhood. The banner flapped in the wind, and she heard the background noise of churning water until it became deafening.

For a long moment she just stood there, reliving the dream-like memories from seven years ago. As time ticked on, however, she knew she couldn't just stand there forever.

She looked over her shoulder at the wood, looking darker and more menacing with the setting of the sun. She could go back home. She should go back home. She was a human, not a spirit. She didn't belong here.

But. Her heart leaped into her throat. Kohaku might be here. The boy from what she had thought had been dreams of this place, but if this was real, then he was real, and if he was real... She could see him. At the very least to yell at him, because he hadn't kept his promise. She nodded decisively, her brown head bobbing up and down once. As she looked down, however, she noticed her blue sailor uniform, black cardigan, and loafers. She looked decidedly... human. They would never let her walk right in. They probably wouldn't even remember her, or recognize her, after seven years. No, she would save everyone the hassle and slip in the back way, like Kohaku had shown her before. She would get Kamaji to help, and Lin, too. Everything would be okay.

* * *

I sat down and just wrote this straight through on a whim. Any feedback is very much appreciated and will be the deciding factor on if I will post a second chapter.


End file.
